Which image for which purpose?

Hi there,

I have a beginner’s question regarding the different images that can be created with the mender-image-* features: Which are used for which purpose?

My current understanding:

  • hddimg can be flashed on a USB stick for later installation on the system (boot and install partition)
  • uefiimg is supposed to be burned directly on the target media (alread contains 4 partitions)
  • mender is the artifact for mender deployment
  • ubi for, well, usage as UBI image
  • sdimg same as uefiimg

Is this correct?

Thanks,
Simon

This is not used in Mender setups. It probably comes from one of the entries in IMAGE_FSTYPES, and is built by poky, not meta-mender.

Correct.

Pretty much, except they are rarely used at the same time. uefiimg is typically used on x86, and on ARM if you are using the default mender-grub integration. sdimg is used on ARM platforms which have done custom U-Boot integrations and have turned off mender-grub and mender-image-uefi. In most cases only one of the two images will be built, so you can check your build directory for which one to use.

Thanks @kacf for the answer.
I submitted a MR to extend the docs on that topic.